Reboot Alberta

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Alberta's Election is Half Over - Not Much Has Happened - Yet!

The Alberta election exits Week 2 and it moves lethargically into week three. The missteps by the mainstream parties of the opening day are done and nothing can be done about them. The "big" stories last week were very weak to say the least. The PCs seem to be always on defence punching from their back foot. The Liberals are showing lots fancy footwork and jumping around a lot but not punching a lot. The NDs are pretty much out of the ring but they running around the outside apron trying to stir up the crowd. The Wildrose Alliance candidates are busy in their livingrooms crafting home made lawn signs. Midweek, the Greens were just 4 seats short of mounting a full slate of candidates...impressive.

The last week saw the headlines preoccupied with stories about partisan appointments of Deputy Returning Officers. The media coverage and the attention getting machinery of the various political parties obligingly “engaged” on the "issue." Bottom line – this is something that should have and could have been fixed before the election. FIXING THIS IS A NO BRAINER.

Political parties should be far removed from the suggestion and selection of DROs. There is a need for absolute - not relative - independence of those who run the election machinery on the ground. That choice of DRO staffers must be the sole and absolute discretion of the Chief Returning Officer. Nothing more. Nothing less. It is not a good enough response to say that there has not been a problem in the past so why is this an issue because there is no problem now.

Doing the right thing, in the right way, all the time...even when no one is looking...is what citizens ought to reasonably expect from political parties and their election procedures. Whose election is it anyway? Elections belong to citizens, not the political parties.

The current “recommendation” model for DROs is old style arcane power/patronage politics that is unacceptable and must go. We PCs have been way to slow to catch up to this issue and put it to bed. I can’t figure out why we are so far behind on it and so slow on getting past it. There are some really big ticket issues of long term significance that deserve attention in this election.

Why are we getting knocked off the puck and appering to be trying to sustain this past stupidity? Stelmach's move to establish all party legislative policy committees last year was a democratic reform that hard to do - and he did it. To cease and desist on appearances of political interference in the election procedures is an easy democratic reform. Get it done Ed!

This past week saw the union sponsored attack ads, under the pseudonym “Albertans for Change, get a big boost in the bucks. AUPE, the GOA staff union, ponies up a cool $300K to keep the campaign alive. I hear lots of grumbling in some labour circles that their unions have been pretty useless at representing the membership’s interests as of late. I wonder if the motivation behind this TV advertising spending against the PCs is as much about showing the union membership that their unions are actually doing something “for them.” Do the boys running the Alberta Building Trades Council think that playing politics with membership dues at election time is going to appease their membership for what many see as a lack of their union's effective performance? Not all union members vote against the PC Party so I can imagine this use of union dues for political attack ads will not be receiving unanimous membership support. At the polls nor in the union halls.

Can you imagine what the union friendly NDP and Brian Mason could have done with all that money being spent on an Ontario advertising agency and for the cost of the TV time too? It would have at least paid out the NDP debt, if nothing else. Brian Mason would likely have had to refuse it anyway because it would have been BIG money running politics again. That is something he has been on about last week in criticizing the big corporate money behind the PCs and the Alberta Liberals.

Week three is coming and I wonder what we will see. There are lots of surveys being circulated to candidates. I have seen those sent to PC candidates so far and I presume all parties are getting them. My post tomorrow will be on the good, the bad and the ugly about survey’s that have come in to date. I will comment on examples in each category. The source of the bad one so far is a surprise.

10 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:31 pm

    Stelmach has been very weak on ethics. Lobbyist Registry Act, not yet proclaimed. Conflicts of Interest Amendment Act not yet proclaimed. Changes to election financing, not dealt with.

    Jim

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:34 pm

    The Stelmach climate change plan will reduce Alberta's GDP by 0.23% and cost an average of $600 million annually.

    Glen

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous8:32 pm

    The unions, instead of paying for these stupid ads, should return the union dues to its members. What an absolute waste of cash!

    This has been the most boring campaign in Alberta that I have witnessed. There are no big ideas and no grand vision. It is sad because Albertans should be engaged in politics.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous10:03 pm

    The DRO issue is just another example of the fact that these guys have been in power for so long that democracy is seriously starting to suffer. Not necessarily because of malfeasance on anyone's part, but because the PCs have had nearly 40 years to stack all kinds of public bodies with their members. That in itself is enough of a reason to change the government, and it's precisely why "change from within" is not going to work.

    Mic

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous9:17 am

    One of the returning DROs was a direct supporter of Hancock in numerous capacities. How could he remain silent on this issue? Why didn't he condedmn the participation as a DRO? Individual MLAs and not just the Premier should have spoken out on this - one ought to question their character for staying silent.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anon @9:17 - I know the person you are referring to and she is very qualified to be a DRO and to do it very fairly and independently.

    When she took the position she sent out an email far and wide advising all of us that she would not be involved in any campaigns as a result and to not contact her about the election.

    I am sure all of her friends and contacts have honoured that request. It has been difficult too because she has turned out to be the poster girl for the DRO issue. Given her need and demand for distance from the election campaign, none of us partisans can really do anything under the circumstances to support her.

    This DRO mater needs to be fixed and I am sure it will be. I ought to have been changed years ago but that is no excuse for not getting it changed now and before this election.

    It has not been a substantial problem but it sure is a symbolic problem for the PCs. The opposition has waited on this issue for the election call and is now making political hay with it. And that is OK-ish because that is how our system works.

    We PCs should have changed this earlier and well before the election. It is not too late to do the right thing on this issue for democracy. It is likely too late to change the public perception of the PC Party on this issue for this election.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous7:11 pm

    Ken, if it was just the appointment of DRO's that was of concern, I'd agree that getting it cleaned up after the election is sufficient. But let's not forget the expose on all those boards and commissions on which card-carrying PC members are so wildly over-represented. This is the way the PC's do business, and it will only stop when they no longer form the government.

    Mic

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous9:49 pm

    "Anon @9:17 - I know the person you are referring to and she is very qualified to be a DRO and to do it very fairly and independently. "

    You have missed the whole point. It is not actual bias but rather the possibility of potential bias. My guess is that Hancock was unaware of this - but if he was, what does that say?

    I agree with you that the whole system needs to be changed but argue that individual MLAs ought to be held accountable.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous9:06 am

    More importantly what does Craig Chandler think of this? After how he's been treated the public is likely to be sympathetic to him and he will surely become Premier.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Mr. Chandler and public sympathy towards him in the same sentence...a first.

    Mr. Chandler becoming Premier of Alberta in the same sentence...a laugh.

    ReplyDelete

Anonymous comments are discouraged. If you have something to say, the rest of us have to know who you are